This invention relates to the field of medical catheters. Specifically, it relates to an intra vascular catheter introducer with a guidewire to assist in the introduction of a catheter into a blood vessel such as a vein or an artery.
Intravascular catheters are used in the medical arts for infusing fluids into a patient or drawing fluids from a patient or monitoring physiological parameters such as blood pressure. They may also be used to introduce and locate probes such as blood pressure or blood gas probes. Conventional catheters such as the Insyte.RTM. catheter available from Beeton Dickinson and Co. of Franklin Lakes, N.J. are typically used for intravenous applications. Such catheters are less suited to intra-arterial applications due to the anatomy of arteries which makes the introduction of catheters difficult. For this reason, various catheters have been invented which make the introduction of a catheter into an artery less difficult. An example of such a device is the Arrow.RTM. Radial Artery Catheterization set available from Arrow International, Inc. of Reading Penna. and described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,417,886. A further example is the device of U.S. Pat. No. 4,894,052 to Becton Dickinson and Company of Franklin Lakes, N.J. Both patents are incorporated herein by reference.